'Map Of The Soul: 7': Snippet of BTS single 'ON' goes viral as band posts video on TikTok ahead of album release
The Korean pop music sensation BTS has now added yet another first to their already immense creative playbook. This time the Bangtan Boys have decided to unveil their latest single called 'ON' from their soon-to-be-released album on the viral video platform 'TikTok'. This marks the first time a globally popular band has introduced a new single from their forthcoming album to the music world using the short-form video app as the introductory platform.
The South-Korean seven-member boy band's latest album, 'Map Of The Soul: 7' drops on Feb 21, at 6 pm KST (4 am ET/1 am PT) and it is already the biggest-selling album in their home country's history, with over four million pre-orders and counting!
The main reason the Grammy award-winning artiste Lil Nas X became so incredibly popular last year with his trap-country crossover hit, 'Old Town Road', is because the song became a viral smash hit with fans on TikTok. So there's definitely a wonderfully savvy marketing strategy in place here, and kudos to BTS for their forward-thinking approach to fan engagement. They were also one of the early adopters of the video-streaming service, V Live, which has enabled them to seamlessly tap into their global fanbase and keep generating hype in the buildup to any of their music releases.
Check out BTS's viral video for 'Black Swan' from their upcoming album below.
The K-pop heartthrobs' strategy to release the single on the video-sharing service TikTok has paid off big-time too. Within a single hour of releasing the 30-second video snippet for 'ON', there were reportedly over 20,000 videos and dance covers featuring the song being posted by the app's users and the numerous members of the BTS fan club called the 'BTS Army'. All this fan activity for the teaser release got the #ONChallenge trending on Twitter too (as is par for the course for anything BTS does online), and now die-hard members of the BTS Army are all immensely stoked in the buildup to the release of the new record, 'Map Of The Soul: 7.'
This isn't even the first time that BTS has used TikTok to engage with their fans. Back in September 2019, the K-pop supergroup opened an official TikTok account and also made history by breaking the record for most users gained in the least amount of time, i.e. a whopping million users in just under four hours. And shortly after that, one of the members, J-Hope launched a viral Chicken Noodle Soup challenge on the platform based on one of his collaborations with Becky G.
It seems like everything BTS touches is turning into gold at this point! We can't wait to hear the new album 'Map Of The Soul: 7' when it releases in a few hours!